candid honesty

Sat Mar 23 19:25:41 GMT 2013

Hi all,

Sorry, you caught me mid-composition mode, so this response is probably
a tad more detailed than you were expecting   8-D

Good smattering of weblinks in this email -- please follow them up as it
illustrates where this is coming from (especially the ones I've
specifically highlighted).

Feel free to forward/post if you wish.

On Fri, 2013-03-22 at 23:51 +0000, Simon wrote:
> The point I was making is that if the market regards the availability of shale
> as a guarantee for energy security then there will be no push to reduce fossil
> fuel consumption.

I'm sorry, but what evidence do you have that the "the powers that be"
want to CUT fossil fuel use?

I don't mean "words" or "policies" here, I mean real data that describes
observable trends in the sustained reduction of fossil fuel use (as well
as other types of resource use) over time; because that's what should be
happening today if we're going to avert "ecological meltdown" --
http://www.unep.org/geo/geo5.asp 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIW9QDRVFPU (watch this one!)

Current policies are focussed on *carbon emissions*. As a result carbon
fuels are still "the power that be's" policy for future development;
certainly beyond the current time horizon for tackling the ecological
crisis. E.g. to see the likely scale of future change read the IEA's
recent projections for future energy policy --
http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/publications/weo-2012/ 
-- in summary, IEA's future projections say energy demand forecast to
rise by 33%, pushing up emissions by somewhere between 30 and 40 billion
tonnes of carbon per year depending upon the fuel mix utilised.

Current UK government policy is for a "balance of energy supply"; that
means a supply of nuclear, fossil fuels and renewable energy sources,
but ultimately always weighted towards the use of fossil fuels -- 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_policy_of_the_United_Kingdom 
Within that policy mix there is no presumption on the progressive
elimination of fossil fuels, not even coal, merely the continued
roll-out of non-fossil fuels sources and carbon capture technology.

Britain has a carbon emissions limit, not a legal presumption on the
reduction in fossil fuel use by targeted amounts --
https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/reducing-the-uk-s-greenhouse-gas-emissions-by-80-by-2050/supporting-pages/carbon-budgets So the lack of real progress on reducing fossil fuel use is unsurprising!

A process that seeks to eliminate the unwanted by-products of fossil
fuel use (the carbon) rather than the problematic carbon-based fuels
themselves is doomed to failure. The 'status quo bias' in this policy
will always seek to retain the use of the fuels at the lowest cost, i.e.
largely unabated carbon emissions.

That being the case why do you expect fossil fuel use to reduce? Given
that a good proportion of fossil fuel use is not compatible with the
viable implementation of carbon capture (e.g. road fuels, small-scale
industrial use, etc.), and given the projected "fuel balance" of the
energy economy, there is no way of meeting present carbon reduction
targets even if it were economically viable to cut almost all power
generation emissions.

When analysing medium/long-term trends on carbon emissions, the data
indicates that the carbon-centric policy approach has produced no
significant progress globally. The Carbon Dioxide Analysis and
Information Center -- http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/meth_reg.html
(part of the US Oak Ridge National Laboratory) -- has a dataset for
global carbon emissions from fossil fuel use from 1751 to 2011. 

Back in 1988, when the IPCC was created, in a practical sense the world
woke-up to irrefutable evidence of climate change. Then in 1992 the UN
Framework Convention on Climate Change was agreed as a means of tackling
carbon emissions. So let's take 1992 as our baseline for evidence in
changes in emissions and look at the total emissions since the beginning
of the Industrial Revolution:

# From 1751 to 2011 global fossil fuel use has generated ~374 billion
tonnes of carbon.

# 142 billion tonnes, or 38% of the total since 1751, has been emitted
SINCE 1993 when the world decided to address urgently the problem of
climate change.

# If current trends continue, then by 2020 HALF of all the carbon
emitted from fossil fuel use since 1751 will have taken place since the
world agreed in 1992 that we should control emissions!

# If we look at 250 years of emissions data, significant emission
reductions have only ever been achieved quickly when the global economy
was in recession -- e.g. the current recession has precipitated a
significant cut in European carbon emissions (Spain has cut carbon
emissions by 16% between 2007 and 2011!).

# When the economy is not in recession, technological changes and a
larger energy/resource supply capacity has driven economic & population
growth, and thus consumption, and thus emissions (this is the famed
"rebound effect"). As a result the recent trend has been for emissions
has been to increase alongside rises in population and affluence --
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/08/hawaii-climate-change-second-greatest-annual-rise-emissions

We're now at the point where we're not going to "save the planet" using
"conventional" lobbying methods, certainly not those which work within
the expectations of the political system to which they are directed --
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWInyaMWBY8 (please WATCH THIS!)
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2012/TED2012_retouched.pdf

Given the indicators to the contrary, there is no compelling evidence to
demonstrate that the global or national political system has acted to
significantly cut the use of fossil fuels/carbon emissions; certainly
not in a manner commensurate with the scale of the 'ecological problem'
-- http://www.csiro.au/files/files/plje.pdf 
(if short of time, just see "conclusions" on pages 37/8 of report text,
which you'll find on pages 41/2 of PDF file).

The underlying reason is that due to the relationship between
energy/resource use and GDP-based economic growth, if the world sought
seriously to cut carbon emissions then the result would be no/slow
growth. This is not what the political-economic establishment want to
hear! In the mean time many of the environmental indicators selected to
demonstrate progress have become consistently worse -- 
http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/POST-Report-9.pdf 
(I recommend reading chapter 2 of this report).

So we face a simple, if stark, choice -- either:

# We should accept that our political process is culpable through
negligence, and take steps to tackle their absurd policies -- e.g.
http://www.treehugger.com/energy-disasters/case-civil-disobedience-climate.html 
-- and campaign on the basis of non-co-operation with their failed
policies/procedures, so significantly raising the public profile of the
issues and thus our ability to make this case; 

...or,

# "Society in general" will continue to believe that the political
establishment is acting reasonably to protect the future viability of
our environment (i.e., nothing will change significantly enough in time
to avoid ecological collapse).

Of course the latter course of action, by allowing this official
negligence and malfeasance -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misfeasance
-- would ultimately will lead to disaster --
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWInyaMWBY8 (WATCH THIS, really!!!)

In contrast I believe that the refusal to co-operate with this inept
establishment has a "better than zero" chance to change the presently
deleterious political/economic psychopathy which dominates our societal
institutions.

Either way, the only way we can cut emissions whilst addressing the
other drivers of human ecological collapse is to engineer a contraction
in the global economy, whilst simultaneously instituting political and
economic reforms to ameliorate the impacts of such an action on most
'ordinary' people around the globe.

...and before you come back against that point with some comment on
using 'technological means' to solve the problem:

# Every year in which emissions do not reduce it means that we have to
capture progressively more in each future year to avoid dangerous
climate change; and

# The annual level of those emissions is increasing exponentially too,
accelerating our approach toward the "point of no return";

# Unfortunately our capacity to capture emissions is not keeping pace
with emissions growth -- and thus there comes a point where the
political inertia results in a scale of annual emissions which cannot be
tackled by the capacities of the global economy (this is the ultimate
flaw in dealing with climate change as a compartmentalised "carbon
issue" rather than tackling the system as a whole); 

...and so finally,

# The historic political inertia mean we're pretty much at the point
where any combination of economically viable technologies will not cut
carbon significantly enough, *AND* maintain the wealth/affluence of
those who promote absurd state of affairs.

Of course whilst this process unfolds, especially in time of economic
strife, our political and economic commentators continue to religiously
proselytise the abilities of this miraculous industrial/technological
process to deliver positive outcomes, irrespective of such trivia as the
laws of thermodynamics -- e.g. http://sustainableshale.org/ 

For the last 20 years the environment movement has proceeded on the
basis that ecological reform will be progressive/incremental rather than
revolutionary. Based upon the wealth of data now available this is
unlikely to be how our future plays out --
http://www.youtube.com/course?list=EC2817969CA87E5B47
(I know this will take a while, and via YouTube they're as dry as
licking sandpaper, but watch some -- especially sections 5 and 6)

So, final point, which of these two options would YOU practically/
morally decide it is "right" to work towards?:

# If the political establishment does nothing significant enough to
reverse current trends within the time available, there will be an
ecological collapse by 2030-2050 -- but we're already passing the point
where the inertia of the system to change/adapt itself will prevent
avoiding this outcome;

# If we can engineer a contraction in the global demand for energy and
resources then at least we have the option of redistributing technical
and material support to help the world's population try and make as soft
landing at a level of resource use at least less than half of current
global levels by the middle to end of the century (that process not
voluntary! -- we either cut ourselves or falling supply/capacity will
ration global demand by price, or worse!).

Oh yeah, the 2030-2050 figure for the big crunch? -- that's not mine.
That's the number coming out of research by the like of state-sponsored
academic institutions such as CSIRO, MIT, Caltech, The Smithsonian
Institute and many other academic institutions researching similar
subjects.

And the practical realities of this debate, like the debate on climate
change in the 1980s, is already feeding through to the global ecological
debate, albeit with myopic linkage to the "growth" issue -- e.g.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/21/nations-urged-combine-environmental-development-goals
(the Nature paper is behind the pay-wall -- try this source instead,
http://phys.org/pdf283013918.pdf )

The ecological reality is that contraction/collapse is going to happen;
all we have now is a choice of whether that is a controlled or
uncontrolled process.

If campaign groups were to internalise this reality, rather than delude
themselves that the political world has any "candidly honest" intention
of cutting fossil fuel use, then I think we'd see a significant change
in the methods and message on environmental groups --
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/your-democracy/2013/01/gene-sharp-machiavelli-non-violence
(READ THIS as an introduction... and think about it a bit, and go here
http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations9173.html )

Peace 'n' love and own-made nut roast,

P.

-- 

"We are not for names, nor men, nor titles of Government,
nor are we for this party nor against the other but we are
for justice and mercy and truth and peace and true freedom,
that these may be exalted in our nation, and that goodness,
righteousness, meekness, temperance, peace and unity with
God, and with one another, that these things may abound."
(Edward Burrough, 1659 - from 'Quaker Faith and Practice')

Paul Mobbs, Mobbs' Environmental Investigations
3 Grosvenor Road, Banbury OX16 5HN, England
tel./fax (+44/0)1295 261864
email - mobbsey at gn.apc.org
website - http://www.fraw.org.uk/mei/index.shtml
public key - http://www.fraw.org.uk/mei/mobbsey_public_key-2013.asc

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